The weight ends

So after pouring through feline nutrition papers by veterinarians such as Deborah Greco and Deb Zoran, I felt invigorated! Their writings were a breath of fresh air that went against conventional wisdom and simply made sense. The idea was to consider that cats have been around for millions of years hunting for their food, but now we were feeding them something very different. We were making a strict carnivore eat like an omnivore - we were making a creature built for protein get by on carbohydrates.

If you want a bit more detail on this subject, find the weblink "Feline Weight Management" under the "General Linx" section of our website.

So I broke the news to my mother - unless she wanted her cat to become a painful arthritic patient, she was going to have to stop feeding dry food and switch to a high protein canned food. Now, as it stands, I am her only child. She hid her disdain for the idea very well.

Next person I remember talking to is a colleague of mine who I hold in extremely high regard. Given that he too works at an all cat facility, I was eager to hear what he was doing with this new information. Turns out he was watching and waiting, wanting to see what happens as other veterinarians go thru the trouble of explaining the latest in feline nutrition.

Well, I wasn't go to let his skepticism hold me down. I was young and eager and ready to spread the good news! What happened after that was very educational. I discovered the bumps in the road. Here's the short list:

• some cats will not eat wet food
• some people will not buy wet food (smell and cost)
• many cats are psychotic about an empty food bowel
• many people like to travel
• no one likes to be awakened in the night by their cat
• old habits are hard to break
• traditionally quiet cats can discover they have vocal cords
• some people get offended when you suggest their cat is obese

Ahhhhhh, discouragement! But, there have been successes! There's my own cat who has become much more active since maintaining her lean body weight of seven pounds. There is Stevie who dropped four pounds and became much more playful. Best of all is Sebastian who went from the low 20's to around 13 pounds - given that his owner drops in frequently for supplies, their accomplishment enters my mind often and encourages me to keep an optimistic view for future patients.

Returning back to my original story (see previous post), it looks like I have two more cats to add to the list. The reason that they weighed significantly less than before is because at the prior examination, we had talked about current feline nutrition and the guy decided to give it a go. When I asked him what he did to make it work, he responded that he just stopped the dry food and switched to canned... He acted like it was as simple as changing a lightbulb! Why can't it be that easy every time???

Heavy Thoughts

Some folks just have it easy.

A client brought two cats in last week for their annual exam, and as I started working on the first one, a huge red flag went off in my head. This cat weigh two pounds less than the previous year. Considering that this is a 9 year old patient, possible disease processes start running through my mind, and I conduct the physical examination looking for the usual suspects like kidney issues, hyperthyroidism and other "diseases of older cats."

Well, really this cat just looked great. While it had gone from 8.5 pounds to 6.5, it was in excellent body condition and no other problems were noted on examination. So I enter my notes into the medical record, and move on to the next cat only to discover it had gone from 20 pounds to 16! And then it clicked...

Time for a flashback:

It's the summer of 2003, and I am fresh out of veterinary school when I get a call from my mother. Being a new graduate, every day seems impossibly busy so the last thing I want to hear about is that she just backed the car over her cat and now it's not moving. My mom is interested in adopting a wait and see sort of approach, and I beg to differ. Cut to the chase, by the end of the week, her cat is doing much better, except that I had to correct a fracture by creating a false hip. Bottom line, the cat is going to do great, as long as it stays lean - excess weight will likely lead to chronic pain in this sort of situation.

So that was really the first time I had to sit down and construct a serious dietary plan for a patient. Hate to admit it, but my vet school put more emphasis on food animal nutrition than on feline nutrition. And even though one of my instructors actually wrote a widely sited (and in my mind revolutionary) article on the dietary needs of cats, somehow it was never chosen as a lecture at my school.

So I read it, and it blew my mind. And then I checked her references to find additional source material, and I got really excited. If what they were saying was correct, then we (veterinarians and the cat food industry) had been looking at things all wrong. I now had a plan. Now to but it into action!

Next time: Great expectations meet reality check.